Judas Maccabeus

The Barnard-Columbia Chorus and student soloists perform Handel’s 1746 masterpiece, Judas Maccabeus. Composed five years after Messiah, the oratorio was inspired by the military victory of William, Duke of Cumberland, over Prince Charles Edward Stuart in April 1746. Judas Maccabeus tells the heroic tale of faithful Jews who, under the repressive reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV, resist the laws intended to abolish their faith and force them to worship pagan gods.